


Acceptance

by 14winters



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Aromantic, Aromantic Joan Watson, Elementary Season 3, F/M, what we should've gotten after 3x07 instead of killing an MOC to put Joan back in the brownstone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-08 02:41:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10376046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/14winters/pseuds/14winters
Summary: An Andrew Lives AU where Joan gets the development she deserves.





	

**Author's Note:**

> In response to a headcanon prompt beanarie sent me on tumblr, which I was overjoyed to fulfill: [ "What Ifs/Alternate Timelines"](http://joaneuglassiawatson.tumblr.com/post/155882452428/20-what-ifs-for-joan)

The morning after Joan broke up with Andrew, she woke up alone in her apartment. This in itself was nothing new. Her and Andrew’s schedules seldom coincided, and she was used to waking up alone. Preferred it actually.

The next time she saw Andrew, it was to get her spare key from him. The ease with which he returned it, the sad understanding in his face, the warmth in his brief touches, bothered Joan more than any bitterness or anger she’d dealt with in previous break ups. Even when a break up had gone smoothly, Joan had always felt some undertone of loss, heartbreak. With Andrew there was nothing.

The first time Andrew texted her after their break up, it was to ask about Clyde, of all things. It made her smile. He had loved Clyde—they’d shared a fondness for reptiles. Texting her now, only a couple weeks after they’d split up, he wanted advice on how to take care of a pet like Clyde. He was thinking of getting one. He missed her. She said she missed him too. They arranged to meet for coffee.

When they met at the coffee shop—a different one than where they’d held their break up conversation—Joan felt far too comfortable than she’d ever felt around any ex. Andrew just felt like a friend. And it was then that it struck her—neither of them had ever said “We can still be friends”. This time, this one time, it had gone unspoken. And they were. Still friends. He hugged her when they met, and he hugged her goodbye. And they kept meeting each other. She’d text him about new cases, he’d tell her how his new business was going, as if nothing had changed except their living arrangements, as if he was still across the pond on a business trip but able to have coffee with her every other week.

When he texted her a picture of his new pet snake, Joan was ecstatic. She went to his apartment a couple days later to exclaim over it. Andrew draped the two-foot rosy boa over her shoulder, laughing at her delight. She told him about the corn snake she’d had in medical school, how she’d missed having one after her schedule became too hectic for a pet. He told her she could come visit his rosy boa any time. For an inexplicable reason, her heart beat faster once she agreed.

The first time they went out for drinks, just the two of them, as friends, it ended with a kiss. Joan was giddy with the idea of drinking after a particularly difficult case with Sherlock, and knew Andrew wouldn’t mind her rambling drunkenly about all the details. Even in her soberest moments, he made her feel calm. With the buzz of alcohol, being with him felt like an extended vacation.

The kiss was clumsy, between Joan digging for her apartment key and Andrew offering to hold her phone for her, both of them laughing as quietly as two drunk people can in an apartment hallway at 2:37 in the morning. Joan, or Andrew, they’re not sure which, ends up dropping her phone and as Andrew rises from picking it up, some stereotypical sparks fly between them and suddenly they’re making out like teenagers against her still locked apartment door.

But it was just a kiss—make-out session, Joan corrected herself, drinking her black tea with sugar the next morning and scowling at the offending cell phone that had seemingly caused this whole mess. It was 8:16am and of course Andrew had not tried to contact her—yet. She didn’t even want an apology—she didn’t even know if she should apologize. They were both still single. They’d both been very drunk.

But talking things out was what Joan preached, and so she did the brave foolhardy thing and texted first. Somehow the text conversation ended with her inviting him over for dinner.

It was nothing like making a dinner after Andrew’s return from a business trip. Yes, there was still wine, and Joan lit candles because she loved having dinner by candlelight—Andrew knew this. When they’d lived together she’d been known to light candles at dinnertime at least three times a week, if not more.

But she was dressed in skinny jeans and a loose t-shirt, not a dress, and her feet were bare when she answered the door. His smile was tinged with his embarrassment at their previous meeting, but she could tell it still came easy to him.

Over glasses of red wine and with Clyde ambling between their bare feet, Joan explained what she thought she wanted, and asked, with her heart pounding and her hands clenched in her lap, if it was something he wanted too. A relationship that wasn’t conventional, that wouldn’t lead to marriage, but that would still have something worth keeping. Worth exploring.

When Andrew’s hand reached out towards her across the table, his palm facing upward and open with his acceptance, Joan took it. The warmth between them was so tangible, Joan had never realized friendship could feel like this. That love could feel like this. That she could truly be with someone without the restraints of commitment pulling her down, putting a wedge between her and anyone she thought should mean more. But “more” had turned out to be something completely new.

Her partner had said it was _a trait to be accepted_.  Now she understood he had wanted her to see what she might be missing. It had been right in front of her the entire time.


End file.
